The Evolution of Italian Painting: A Quantitative Investigation of Trends in Style and Content from the Late Gothic to the Rococo Period

The reported study tests the theory that the phenomenon of habituation pressures successive artists within any style to increase the impact value or arousal potential of their works. In most media, this is best accomplished by increases in the collative aspects of artworks (e.g. novelty, complexity, incongruity). These increases are achieved by movement toward more primary process cognition by successive artists during the inspirational stage of creation. When this becomes difficult, impossible or counterproductive, stylistic change occurs and the process begins anew. The theory was tested on a series of Italian paintings produced between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries. Naive subjects rated color slides of the paintings on scales designed to tap the variables of theoretical interest. Results were in conformity with theoretical predictions.